As it awaits punishment from the NCAA for academic fraud, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Friday announced two recently uncovered violations involving the women’s basketball team and men’s soccer team.
Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham said the women’s basketball violations were similar to the cheating uncovered by former federal prosecutor Ken Wainstein, hired by the university to investigate allegations athletes were placed in sham classes to boost their grade-point averages so they could continue to play.
Cunningham said the violations were discovered as the university went through 5 million to 6 million pages of documents it is making public as part of a review of 18 years of fraud.
The soccer violations involved recruiting, Cunningham said, and were discovered during a compliance test. Cunningham said it appeared the coaching staff misunderstood NCAA recruiting rules.
“I’m very disappointed in the timing and the impact it’s going to have on the institution, but I’m proud of the fact that people own the mistakes when it happens,” Cunningham said.
The NCAA, already in the process of sanctioning UNC for the largest academic fraud in college sport history, was notified of the newly discovered violations August 10.
The NCAA now has the opportunity to amend the notice of violations against UNC.
This summer the NCAA announced five level-1 violations related to the 18-year fraud that was perpetrated by several members of the athletic and academic staff.
Cunningham said he hopes the process of sanctioning the university will come to a conclusion by the spring of 2016. He said Tar Heels are anxious for closure.
“As painful as it is, I do think it’s part of the Carolina culture that we want to know what happened,” he said.